Sorry, but this is good WHY, again?

"President Evo Morales, the South American nation's first Indian leader, has found an ally in the U.S. software giant as he promotes the native tongues of his country's indigenous majority."
How is his going to promote quechua? Who else would use this unless they ALREADY know how to speak it? A few words in windows is going to help promote this language?

"Morales sees empowering these people as his primary mission."
Empowering?!... If anything it will set them BACK a few notches... they’ll be lost when they get to work on a standard computer

"The company recently won a contract from the Peruvian government for 5,000 Quechua-equipped computers"
Gates would translate windows to Martian! If it meant it would sell a few more computers

I’m pretty sure this is nothing but a great political move for Morales ... and some"guy’s poker night" change for Gates

 

@soloyo: were you being sarcastic, or serious?

-- Edited by Dogo at 19:21, 2006-08-30

Bolivia - MAD respect

First you elect an indigenous for president and now this... Watch out BUSH here comes Bolivia.

Now if we can only get other Latin American countries on board.  If they play their cards right maybe Mr. Gates will donate money like he does to India....

Quixote wrote:

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This little bit of news surprised me.  Kudos to Microsoft for taking the time to research and promote the usage and retention of the Quechua language.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/08/25/inca.microsoft.ap/index.html

 

Excerpt from article:

 

SUCRE, Bolivia (AP) -- You have to press "Qallariy" to begin.

Pronounced "KAH-lyah-ree," the word replaces "Start" on Microsoft Windows' familiar taskbar in a new Quechua translation of the program, which gets its Bolivian debut Friday.

President Evo Morales, the South American nation's first Indian leader, has found an ally in the U.S. software giant as he promotes the native tongues of his country's indigenous majority.

Some 2.6 million Bolivians -- nearly one third of the country -- speak the Incan language, and Morales sees empowering these people as his primary mission. Among the first users of Quechua software will be Indian members of a constituent assembly meeting in this colonial city to rewrite the nation's constitution.

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Interesting... but how many of those 2.6 million can actually afford a computer? How many of them even know how to read, let alone USE a computer? Aren't indigenous people one of the most neglected when it comes to education? I find this ironic. Maybe they're just doing it as a social study kinda thing. I'd be interested to know.

I've heard about this project a long time a go and I found it very cool....

I also heard that windows was working in a Romané version (gipsy language)